The narrow path

This week's verses are Matthew 7:13-14:

“Enter through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it!

Jesus is talking here to believers who want to know if they're on the right track. They are expecting to hear that if they do the usual good things, like giving to charity, being polite, not committing any heinous crimes, and so on, that they should be fine. They want to hear "just keep doing what you're doing." And that's what many churches preach. And we should keep doing what we're doing, if what we're doing is good.

But what Jesus says is that the path to escape destruction is not the one everyone else is on. Along with the superficial goodness of the wide path is a lot of unnoticed depravity. We don't notice because we have nobody from the narrow path to compare ourselves to. And the wide path is a path of paint-by-numbers righteousness that could exist separately from God. It's possible to be a really "good" person on the wide path and still be in full rebellion against God.

The narrow path, on the other hand, is difficult to find and difficult to follow. It's less convenient. We can't just follow the crowd or see where everyone else is going. We have to keep asking the Holy Spirit to guide us.

 

Look around. Which path do you seem to be on? Are you following along with the crowd, not worrying too much about getting lost, or do you have to keep stopping and asking directions? Jesus tells us to enter through the narrow gate. He tells us to follow him, not the religious trendsetters and influencers of the day.

However we can, we should try to engage life by entering through the narrow gate. We choose the things the Bible tells us to choose, instead of picking from an unlimited menu of options. We acknowledge Jesus as our God, as The Way, not just one of a countless number of equivalent and interchangeable "faith traditions." There are plenty of lanes on the wide path, but only one lane on ours.

Jesus says our gate is narrow and our path is difficult. It leads to the cross. It passes through persecution and suffering and self-denial. Even if we know where the path is, we are sometimes tempted to take a shortcut through the wide path. But that's not where Jesus leads us.

Examine your life and see if you need to turn around and retrace your steps to find the narrow path. God will help you find the way if you ask him.